Ever wanted to taste the sexy, sexy lovechild of butter and cream cheese? Want to make very flavorful and tangy butter and buttermilk? Look no further! These recipes are surprisingly easy (especially the buttermilk) and the results are very much worth the minimal effort. One great thing about this recipe is that the buttermilk you make can be extended for months, by using your first batch to make a fresh batch of buttermilk about once a week! The next great thing is that you can make the cultured butter with cream that's been frozen and thawed!
here are some recipes you can use your cultured butter & buttermilk in:
The recipe is here, and pictures of the process are below.
Ingredients:
To make buttermilk without a culture you can use pasteurized storebought buttermilk and mix it with milk. After a few hours you have buttermilk:
1 cup 2% or whole milk
1/4 cup buttermilk or kefir*
Sterilized jar
To make cultured butter you mix buttermilk with heavy cream, let rest, and whip/blend to separate the butterfat (the butter) from the buttermilk:
2 cups heavy cream (33% fat)
1 1/2 Tbsp. buttermilk or kefir*
Sterilized jar
*Note: Buttermilk must have "bacterial cultures or live cultures" in the ingredient list. The buttermilk, milk, and cream can be pasteurized but avoid ultra-pasteurized.
Directions:
How to sterilize a jar: Not absolutely necessary, you can use a very clean jar instead but this method is safer. Two ways: 1) heat the clean jar(s) for 1 hour at 320F/160C for one hour in your oven, 2) add clean jar(s) to a pot and cover with water. Then bring to a light boil and boil 15 minutes. Remove jars by straining water out or remove with metal tongs. With both methods let them dry and cool completely before using.
To make buttermilk:
Mix buttermilk and milk together in the sterilized jar.
Cover and let sit at room temperature (68-75°F) 4-12 hours.
When it's ready it will smell a bit sour and will be thicker than milk. For example, when you pour it out of a glass it will leave residue behind (see picture below). Cover, refrigerate, and use for up to 10 days.
To make cultured butter (and buttermilk):
Mix buttermilk and cream together in the sterilized jar.
Cover and let sit at room temperature (68-75°F) 1-3 days. Check occasionally to see if it smells sour. It should thicken.
Separate the butter fat from the buttermilk with a food processor, blender, hand mixer & bowl, or by shaking in a jar. Blend, whip, or shake the mixture until butter separates. You can strain and save the excess buttermilk!
You need to remove excess buttermilk to stop the butter from spoiling too quickly. So move the butter to a bowl. Add cold water and and "clean" the butter by mixing & mashing it to release buttermilk and then refresh the water. Repeat until the water is clear after mixing.
Try your best to remove excess water from the butter.
You can add salt (usually 1/8 to 1/4 tsp.) if desired. Or you can leave it unsalted. Either way, cover and and refrigerate the butter and use for up to 10 days.
How to make Buttermilk:
So you can see the specification of the buttermilk and milk I used.
As you can see the buttermilk has live cultures, which is very important! Both are pasteurized, which is okay.
After mixing the milk and buttermilk together. Let sit at room temperature 4-12 hours.
After 4-12 hours, it will look very similar, but it will be thicker and smell sour. Another way to see it's ready is if it leaves residue on a glass:
The glass on the left had milk in it. the glass on the right had my homemade buttermilk in it!
How to make Cultured butter:
I used the same buttermilk as pictured before. And I used 33% fat heavy cream. I had frozen this cream to preserve it, and then thawed it out, as you can see it looks weird here, but the process still works. Regular unfrozen cream works just as well!
Mix the cream with the buttermilk and store at room temperature up to 3 days. Mine went the full 3 days.
This is day three. The fats have separated and floated to the top mostly, leaving a very liquid layer on the bottom. Sorry for the bad lighting, I decided to finish the butter late at night.
Before separating.
And after separating! we now have separate buttermilk and butter.
The buttermilk strained out. Save this becaus'e it's perfectly good buttermilk!!
Now we start the "cleaning' process. As you can see the cold water i added is cloudy with buttermilk. Continue cleaning until the water added becomes clear after mixing.
The water is clear! We're good to store it!
What a beauty!
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